Rwanda deportation policy: Court of Appeal to reconsider Home Office plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

The government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will be challenged at the Court of Appeal.

The High Court last month dismissed challenges against the Home Office’s controversial deportation policy and decided it was legal. But in a hearing on Monday (16 January), the same judges granted an appeal against their ruling - with individual asylum seekers and charity Asylum Aid given permission to challenge the decision.

The Court of Appeal will consider a range of arguments, including whether the plan amounts to an unlawful penalty under the Refugee Convention, whether asylum seekers are given fair opportunity to resist deportation under the policy, and whether Rwanda is a safe country for migrants.

Solicitor Carolin Ott of law firm Leigh Day, who is representing the charity Asylum Aid, said: “Asylum Aid is relieved that the court has rightly recognised there are compelling reasons for its case to be heard in the Court of Appeal. We look forward to presenting our client’s case that the procedure adopted by the Home Office to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unfair and consequently unlawful.”

The Home Office previously said ministers “stand ready” to defend against further legal challenges to the Rwanda deportation policy, which Home Secretary Suella Braverman described as a “world-first agreement.”

In April last year, then-home secretary Priti Patel signed an agreement with Rwanda for it to receive migrants deemed by the UK to have arrived “illegally”. But it faced several challenges from the outset, including the grounding of its first deportation flight - due to take off on 14 June 2022 - by the European Court of Human Rights.

The turbulent journey seemed to near its end in December when the High Court rejected arguments that the plans were unlawful, with the Home Secretary, who previously described the prospect of seeing a flight take off for Rwanda as her “dream” scenario, remarking: “We have always maintained that this policy is lawful and today the court has upheld this.”

But the disappointment and outrage from refugee charities was clear, giving an indication that another legal challenge may be on its way. Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, commented at the time: “We are very disappointed in the outcome of this case. If the government moves ahead with these harmful plans, it would damage the UK’s reputation as a country that values human rights, and undermine our commitment to provide safety to those fleeing conflict and oppression, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention.

“Treating people who are in search of safety like human cargo and shipping them off to another country is a cruel policy that will cause great human suffering. The scheme is wrong in principle and unworkable in practice. The possibility of being sent off to Rwanda is causing huge distress to those we work with, including young people who are becoming extremely anxious and in some cases self-harming.”

Meanwhile, Clare Moseley, founder of charity Care4Calais, added that the ruling means there are “potentially thousands more people seeking asylum in the UK who are, right now and in the future, potentially facing the threat of removal to Rwanda under this cruel and unworkable policy.” It is for all of them that we made this challenge and for them we must continue to pursue it. The Rwanda plan won’t end small boat crossings and it won’t keep refugees safe. There is a kinder and more effective way; giving safe passage to refugees in Calais.”

Care4Calais is amongst the claimants who have not been granted an appeal. The others include the PCS union and Detention Action.

No date has been set for the hearing yet, and the Court of Appeal may also be asked to consider other issues which Lord Justice Lewis and Mr Justice Swift refused permission to appeal against.

Lawyers will be expected to reprise some of the arguments that they made in the hearing in December, including claims that Rwanda is an “authoritarian state” that “tortures and murders those it considers to be its opponents” - as well as concerns that sending asylum seekers there would lead to serious breaches of the Refugee Convention.